DE.

Arma with his shooting boots on straight away this season, which is vital for us. Sounds like we are teaching Wycombe a harsh lesson about the quality needed to step up a league.

How did Preston let Dolan slip away? The lad looks immense.

According to this he's shorter than a fair few in the team today!

Would have given Davenport a start over Johnson. If he isn't even trusted to start at home to Wycombe when will his time come? I guess when either or both of Holtby & Johnson get injured. Our bench certainly highlights a lack of squad depth. Not many (any?) game changers there. Chapman at a push.

Of the outfield players in the team arbitro posted, this many goals were contributed last season (according to Transfermarkt): JRC - 0 Lenihan - 3 Williams - 3 Bell - 0 Holtby - 3 Johnson - 3 Rothwell - 2 Dolan - N/A Brereton - 1 Armstrong - 16 So... yeah, going to stick with my view that we are massively relying on Arma to score. He netted more goals last season than the rest of today's team combined. If Arma has an off day we'll be lucky to score more than one, especially if Wycombe come to Ewood with a defensive mentality.

Most of those players have played far more than two competitive games for us. Unless you think they've undergone a radical transformation over the summer most of them will be at a similar level to last season. I genuinely hope your optimism is justified and these players all of a sudden start banging in goals and creating assists, as that would have us at the right end of the table for sure and make Dack and Travis' absence a lot easier to cope with. Also worth remembering we typically struggle in games like this against 'easier' opposition. Anyone who thinks Wycombe at home is a given has a very short memory. We should be able to beat them, but fool me once...

Who in that team scores goals regularly other than Armstrong? For me to have a strong team we need Ayala beside Lenihan at CB, a new LB (hopefully coming Monday), much better than Evans/Johnson beside Holtby in midfield, much better than Gallagher/Brereton up front and Rothwell needs to show some consistency. If you rate these players higher than I do, no problem. It's just my opinion.

I have to say, to me that is quite a worrying line up. A very weak defence and GK who is still bedding in, two crocks in midfield who can play but could break down at any time, Rothwell inconsistent, Dolan unproven, Brereton usually useless. Relying massively on Arma to score as there aren't many goals in the rest of that team. Hopefully Wycombe aren't up to much, as I don't foresee that team posing much of a threat to decent Championship opposition.

Perhaps Mowbray is just preparing for what feels like Nyambe's inevitable departure at this point.

Surely not Bennett at RB again...

At least Johnson chips in with a few goals. He's scored more in 35 appearances than Evans has in 184!

Would also explain our extremely poor shots to shots on target ratio. Shooting outside the box is only going to work if we have players who can hit the target from there.

I believe he was asking for something like £20k p/w which the club rightly refused to pay. I imagine if he'd been more realistic with his demands he would have been kept on. Forunate for us that he wanted far more than he was worth.

We both know that as soon as TM saw all of those tattoos Maddison's name was hastily scrubbed from the shortlist.

He only ended up appearing 7 times for Hull and from recollection didn't look very impressive when we played them either. I thought he'd find a club fairly quickly but something is obviously amiss there. Don't think we'll be seeing him at Rovers regardless!

I was under the impression there were a few Championship clubs interested - you'd think on a free someone would take a punt, as his wages surely wouldn't be that high. Goes without saying it's a very bad time to become a free agent with COVID having a major financial impact on all EFL clubs and the salary cap being imposed in L1 & L2.

Interesting that nobody has signed Marcus Maddison yet. As far as I can tell he's still without a club. Wonder what's stopping somebody from signing him? Is his attitude really that bad? That or his agent is making ridiculous wage demands.

Ah, the good old Lynchpin. Still waiting for his PL move to materialise.

Couldn't agree terms on a new contract, decided he wanted to move elsewhere and was either frozen out or refused to play depending on who you're hearing the story from. Either way his omission from the Boro first team at the end was nothing to do with how good he was, purely down to contractual disagreements.

The sooner Dack returns the better. Just hope the injury hasn't taken too much out of him.

Fantastic signing. Just need a LB now and our backline is solid for as long as everyone stays fit.

Whilst I understand the pleasing aspects of our play at times being interpreted as a good performance, the reality is we only had two shots on target which won't win most games. You only score if you are hitting shots on target, and one could argue we were lucky yesterday to have a 100% conversion rate (thanks to a howler from their GK for one of those), and we still lost.

Normally on a keeper's debut conceding three goals would be a cause for concern, but he had no chance with any of the goals today and saved us from conceding a couple more with some good saves. His distribution was decent and he seemed vocal with the defence. I really hope for his sake we bring in some better defenders before the window closes, or he's going to be in for a long and tiring season.

If we're 'on top' or 'dominating' in the closing stages and the game is level you can practically guarantee the opposition will end up scoring. It's happened so many times that I'd rather hear we were under the cosh as I'd feel more confident of us nicking a goal in that scenario than if we're dominating.

He's good enough if you want a team who performs at roughly the level they should do, sometimes a little higher or lower in either direction. He is not good enough if you want a manager who can get a team punching above its weight, or a manager who considers defence as a major priority. It's not just Rovers where he has had a poor defence - it's practically every team he's ever managed. He's also not a manager you want to give much money to as he doesn't seem good at judging who to buy for serious money. There are a lot of managers with that problem though - Mark Hughes is another off the top of my head. Much better when the chequebook is limited. Compare the impact of Dack and Arma, bought for modest fees, against Gallagher and Brereton.